Meet John Chen, BlackBerry’s Interim CEO

The man being brought in to run BlackBerry Inc. on an interim basis has experience in saving and eventually selling a struggling technology company.

Bloomberg News

He has said it is all about confidence building.

John S. Chen joined Sybase Inc. in 1997, as the company was in the midst of a four-year streak of net losses.He would recall years later as he left Sybasethat research firm Gartner Inc. predicted a 70% probability for “Sybase’s death” at the time. After taking over as CEO in 1998, he turned the operations around and eventually sold it for $5.8 billion to SAP in 2010, more than 15 times the market cap when he took over.

At BlackBerry, he’ll face a similar attitude of defeatism, but may not be looking for a buyer at this point. The company is ending its strategic review after it failed to reach a deal.

Mr. Chen left Sybase and SAP last October and shortly afterward was named a senior adviser to technology buyout shop Silver Lake. He also sits on the boards of The Walt Disney Co. and Wells Fargo. Along with becoming interim CEO, Mr. Chen will join BlackBerry’s board, the company announced Monday.

“BlackBerry is an iconic brand with enormous potential – but it’s going to take time, discipline and tough decisions to reclaim our success,” he said in a statement. “I look forward to leading BlackBerry in its turnaround and business model transformation for the benefit of all of its constituencies, including its customers, shareholders and employees.”

“You have to build the confidence,” Mr Chen told WSJ in 2005. “Most people jump in and talk about strategy, talk about products — those are important aspects. [But] the most important people whose confidence you need to rebuild is the employees. The second is the customers, then the shareholders. It has to be in that order: If you don’t have [confident] employees, the customers will not be well treated, which means they will abandon you, and that will make the shareholders unhappy.”

Given BlackBerry had announced plans to cut 40% of its workforce, has taken a $1 billion writedown on its new phones, and now dropped plans to find a buyer, confidence inside and out will be tough to find.

Shares slump 13% to $6.76 in recent trading and earlier hit a new recent low of $6.40.